Soft serve

chapter 1 - first shift

It had been a dream of Jacob’s for years to work in an ice cream van. Of course it had, how could it not be? As Mx Sansweet showed him the basics of the van, he couldn’t help but imagine giving his 12 year old self the highest five possible.

“And that button there logs the purchase!” Mx Sansweet pushed the button marked with a green sticker, a chime telling that the transaction was complete. They beamed at him, a knowing glint in their eye. “And now the moment I’m sure you’ve been waiting for,” they stepped around him, doing a melodramatic drum roll on their belly. Mx Sansweet was like that as long as he’d known them. Constantly smiling, always up for a laugh, and enamoured with their plump frame. Jacob couldn’t remember a time he’d seen them without a hand on their potbelly. They seemed to revel in their size. Jacob didn’t really get it, but he supposed he didn’t really need to. “The ice cream maker!!!” They grinned, taking a cone from the dispenser next to the machine. They were right, this was what Jacob had been waiting for. His eyes widened and shone as he put a hand on the machine that had made his childhood. If it weren’t for his near religious obsession with football he might have ended up with a body similar to Mx Sansweet! As it was though, he was tall, athletic, with a square clean shaven jaw and shoulder length hair pulled back into a man bun.

“Oh man...” he whispered, then began to giggle. “I can’t believe I get to work this thing!”

“I know! My first time was oh so exciting as well!” Mx Sansweet handed him the cone, an eyebrow raised. “Let’s see how you do on your first try, eh?”

He nodded, putting the cone under the machine with his tongue between his teeth. He slowly pulled the lever down, like he’d seen Mx Sansweet and their predecessors do in this very van hundreds of times before. The result... was a wonky and sloppy mess. “Bugger,” he muttered, licking a drop of the delicious cream off his thumb.

“Not to worry!” Mx Sansweet clapped him on the back. “That’s a lot better than my first attempt, look!” They pointed to a picture hanging on the back door. Jacob saw someone roughly his age, holding a wilted and sloppy attempt at a cone. He almost didn’t recognise them. Their hair was brown and straight instead of green and curly, and they were at least 150lb lighter. But then he saw that smile, that same ear to ear grin that nobody could ever hope to recreate. “Say ‘Ice Cream!” He heard, turning back to see Mx Sansweet holding their phone out ready to take a picture.

“Huh?” Was all he could say, still in disbelief at how much different Mx Sansweet used to look. They were so skinny, so athletic, so... so hot!

“Oh it’s a truck tradition, every newcomer gets a picture with their first ice cream, so they can look back on where they started and see how far they’ve come, how much they’ve improved. A wonderful sentiment, don’t you think?”

He nodded, though he wasn’t sure if he’d call Mx Sansweet’s changes an improvement. Alright then. 3...2...1... ICE CREAM!”

He smiled, they tapped the screen, and with that, Jacob had his first job. He’d be working weekend afternoons after training until school broke for summer, when he’d up his hours for the couple of months before he moved out for college. He was… excited. Yeah, definitely. It was what he’d worked towards for years. Get his football scholarship and go to college, get his life on a good trajectory. It was what he wanted. Yeah. Until then, though, he could indulge in a childhood dream and earn a little money along the way. He licked his thumb again. The ice cream had begun to melt and was dripping over his hand. “Oh shit, uh, do you have a trash-can or something I could put this in?”

Mx Sansweet laughed and shook their head. “We don’t waste good ice cream here! If you mess up a cone, that cone’s yours!” they leaned in and winked. “And to make sure you don’t end up making bad cones on purpose to have for yourself, you can also have as much ice cream as you want on the house. Who knows? Maybe after pulling yourself enough cones you’ll be a master! It’s what I did!” they laughed, patting their huge belly with a pride that Jacob really couldn’t understand. But he wasn’t about to turn down free ice cream!

“Sounds good, boss,” he nodded, bringing the delicious vanilla cream to his lips. He really should make sure to improve at pulling cones as quickly as possible, enough of these and, well, the future he feared was watching him slurp up the thick creamy treat. “So when do I start officially?”

“Right now, of course!” Mx Sansweet clambered out of the back of the van, coming around to the window and resting their flabby arms on the counter.

His eyes widened with slight panic. “Wha- seriously? It’s not even my first day, this was supposed to be a training shift! What if I screw up people’s cones?”

Mx Sansweet patted his hand good-naturedly. “Oh don’t worry so much, Jacob, this is ice cream, not football! Nobody expects reflexive perfection from this, much less from a young man on his first shift. Besides, it’s too cloudy for you to get many customers today. You’ll get a few, but they’ll hardly be the type to complain about a bad cone,” they tossed him the keys and began to walk off. “If you need me my number’s on the post-it note, good luck!”

Jacob steeled himself, licking at the sugary confection still in his hand. “OK… ok… first job, first day, got to make a good impression, I can do this,” the cool and taste of the ice cream seemed to calm his nerves a little, taking him back to a time before tryouts and training sessions and scholarships and scrimmage and all those other stressful super important things he needed to get right or else his life wouldn’t go the way he needed it to. Before he even knew it, his ice cream was all finished, cone and all. He smacked his lips and drummed his fingers on the counter, looking out of the window for any passers by. None yet. Well Mx Sansweet did say it’d be a slow day. Maybe he could use this time to practice his technique. He took out another cone, his hand steadier this time, and pulled the lever down slowly. Too slowly. The thick tube of ice cream split in the middle before it even reached the cone.

“Damnit!” he cursed, almost crushing the cone in his hand. But then he remembered what Mx Sansweet said; we don’t waste good ice cream. He filled up the cone as best he could and dug in. Once again, the sensation of the vanilla hitting his tongue seemed to suck all his worries away. He licked and slurped and crunched until, once again, the cone was completely gone, a contented smile on his face.